The Fantasy of Disarmament

...and the Soviet Union also plays an important role in determining the stability or precariousness of the peace...

...Thus a surprise attack is not likely to occur under these circumstances...

...Present nuclear installations, except for manned aircraft, depend upon fixed bases and liquid fuels...

...In turn, even if one waited, these bases would still be available to hit the enemy's population and resources if this attack were massive...

...A world with vulnerable nuclear installations is a hazardous and unpleasant place to live in...

...Even apart from aggressive motivations, the vulnerability of present nuclear systems may create a temptation to strike first rather than to give a potential enemy an opportunity to strike first with relative impunity...

...Do away with military bases and do away with war...

...Yet, if a genuinely effective control and warning system were possible, this might prove very valuable...

...Khrushchev's proposals for ground point controls should have been explored more thoroughly...

...Recent investigations by T. C. Schelling of the Rand Corporation have demonstrated that increasing the number of nuclear weapons sites may have an important role in stabilizing international politics and reducing the danger of war...

...Indeed, those of us who can remember back to the 1930s know that it was a failure of Britain and France to enter into an armament race with Nazi Germany that contributed to World War II...

...It is not likely, therefore, that the Soviet Union expects its proposals to be accepted...

...If the Soviet Union is serious about reducing the dangers of the nuclear age, it should begin to make serious proposals...

...They are simple and easy to understand...

...Therefore it would be desirable to wait so as to see whether a genuine massive attack were in progress before deciding how to respond...

...Disarmament is not necessarily desirable...

...The advantages of highly invulnerable nuclear bases are even greater...

...If technological weapons developments are permitted, rather than foreclosed, the power of accidents or mad pilots to start major thermonuclear wars would be greatly diminished...

...Yet it is necessary to demonstrate its lack of validity...

...had 2,000 nuclear installations, the Soviet Union would need 6,000...

...These considerations bring into question Topchiev's comment that priority should be given to disarmament and not to control...

...Even though agreements are violated, democracies find it difficult to renounce them, and serious changes in the balance of military force might occur before counter-measures were taken...

...Then if the U.S...

...Calling off the arms race now would stifle the technological development of new weapons...

...In addition, the present dangerous fail-safe procedures over the Arctic regions would no longer be necessary...

...If, however, the U.S...

...This is not to assert that the American position has always been correct and the Soviet always wrong...

...If, however, the installations that house the striking forces of both the USSR and the U.S...

...Therefore there would always be sufficient warning to react in time...

...These forces are therefore highly vulnerable...

...had 1,000 nuclear installations, the Soviet Union would need 2,000 before it would be willing to launch a surprise attack...

...But we can still control the distribution of nuclear weapons...

...This belief is widespread and, therefore, it would be a disservice in establishing conununications with Soviet scientists to attack Topchiev's good faith in making this assertion...

...and the USSR...

...If there were an opposition party in the Soviet Union, if foreigners could travel freely, if there were a free press and legislative investigations of military policy, the Soviet Union could permit the kind of inspection that would minimize the possibility of surprise attack...

...But it is urgent not to let the natural desire for peace lead the United States to steps that threaten our national security but do not diminish the danger of war...

...unless it could reduce the American installations to less than 250, because any larger number of American bases could do more retaliatory damage to the Soviet Union than it would be willing to accept...

...On the other hand, it is unlikely that the Soviet Union genuinely fears a surprise attack by the U.S...

...Their positions are known to potential attackers and they cannot be placed in a state of readiness for up to eight hours...

...One could then afford to disarm, for the public measures necessary for any nation to rearm sufficiently to launch a major war would be impossible to hide...

...It would be dangerous if nuclear weapons become widespread, for they are potentially cheap...

...If America did not carry out such an attack when the Soviet Union was unable to strike back at the U.S., it is hardly likely to do so when the Soviet Union does have that capability...

...And if the U.S...

...The debate over disarmament obscures the vital fact that the chief danger of surprise attack stems from the nature of the Soviet political system...

...had 500 nuclear installations, the Soviet Union could afford a surprise attack with 500 nuclear bases of its own...

...We must, of course, examine carefully the merits of every plan for disarmament or arms control...

...If, in addition, informants were rewarded and given asylum by an international arms-control agency, real, perhaps total, disarmament would become a possibility...

...For instance, assume that the Soviet Union could use each of its nuclear installations to knock out an American nuclear base with .5 probability...

...It might be desirable to strike back in full force, because of the need to use existing nuclear installations against the enemy's military bases and civilian centers before one's own striking forces could be knocked out...

...Only a small percentage of our manned aircraft can be kept in the air constantly or at a ready alert...

...If nuclear systems were highly vulnerable, it might not prove feasible to wait for evidence concerning the scope of the attack in such a case...

...Those armament races that do not lead to war early tend to stabilize peacefully...

...The nature of the weapons employed in the security networks of the U.S...

...The American deterrent system, in the absence of operational ICBMs, will require European air and missile bases for its effectiveness during the next few years...

...If, however, the U.S...

...It would be almost impossible to maintain secrecy, and the effort to build a striking force large enough to risk a surprise attack might seriously strain a nation's economy...

...were highly invulnerable, each nation's nuclear striking forces would be most useful against populations and resources and not against nuclear bases...

...Although atomic weapons can, theoretically, be hidden from inspection, the information would almost surely be leaked if there were no fear of political reprisal...

...The knowledge necessary to produce them is our inescapable heritage unless we kill all physical scientists...

...Besides the technical minimization of the dangers of surprise, which the Soviet delegates at Geneva refused to consider, there is one important area where the U.S...

...and the Soviet Union might be able to agree...

...The disadvantages of calling off the arms race at this time do not flow only from the number of bases needed for stabilizing peace...

...has 500 installations, a Soviet increase from 400 to 500 installations might be so frightening that the U.S...

...In other words, if the U.S...

...The possibility is so frightening that it is politically useful to them...

...Topchiev refers to the danger of an accident or of a mad pilot's dropping a nuclear bomb...

...might have a rational incentive for preventive war...

...It would not be possible to knock out the retaliatory forces of the attacked nation, and therefore a large-scale surprise attack would insure a massive retaliatory counterattack...

...Nuclear weapons are least dangerous when they are monopolized...

...In this case, there would be no reason to engage in instant massive retaliation, because such retaliation would not diminish significantly the ability of the enemy to retaliate massively...

...The theoretical investigations of Lewis F. Richardson indicate that whether armament races produce war or peace depends upon a number of highly technical factors...

...This holds both for the U.S...

...but disarmament without control would only permit the Soviet Union to evade its obligations as it has, for instance, in the case of the Korean armistice, which was evaded massively the day after the arms agreements were signed...

...But do the Soviets really desire the kind of control measures that would reduce the danger of surprise attack...

...Yet, on closer examination, Topchiev's assumptions fit in better with Soviet objectives than they do with either historical or technological evidence...

...But his proposals make good propaganda—even more so in Asia and Africa than in Europe...

...If, however, nuclear installations were not very vulnerable, either because they were hard-based or because they were mobile or perhaps based on submarines, it would be dangerous to attack a nation possessing them...

...But if the Soviet Union is serious, then it must not make, almost exclusively, proposals which reduce the security of the U.S...

...By concentrating its efforts on the reduction of American bases abroad, the Soviet Union indicated, at the Geneva disarmament conference, that it is interested primarily in political advantages rather than in reducing the mutual danger of surprise attack...

...For instance, Topchiev states: "The stockpiling of armaments, experience tells us, always leads to war...

...According to a study by Samuel P. Huntington of the Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University, armament races rarely have led to war except in their very early or introductory stages...

...Thus the larger the number of nuclear installations, under the stated assumptions, the less dangerous any given change in the relative balance of military capabilities might be...

...That they do is doubtful...

...To the layman who assumes that the factual assertions of Academician Topchiev are correct, the case for disarmament on Soviet terms may seem compelling...

...In the hands of some future Nasser all sorts of trouble might result, particularly if it proves difficult to determine who launched the attack...

...The numbers are designed only to illustrate the nature of the problem, not to indicate the actual figures which provide safety...

...This would be especially true for the next few years, during which nuclear bases will remain highly vulnerable to surprise attack...

...and decrease the stability of the existing nuclear balance...

...Yet new weapons developments appear most promising from the standpoint of keeping the peace or of minimizing the costs of war...

...Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev is an intelligent man and he knows this...

...The world cannot be changed radically enough to eliminate such weapons...

...for it is advantageous to them to hold the threat of surprise attack over the West...

...The Soviet proposals undoubtedly would reduce the possibility of surprise attack against the Soviet Union, but they would also minimize the possibility of an effective military defense of Western Europe...

...For even in the present period, if an attacker cannot catch his opponent by surprise, the costs of nuclear war probably would be too high...

...Continuing the arms race, in the absence of foolproof inspection, will prevent war rather than cause it The Fantasy of Disarmament By Morton A. Kaplan THE PROBLEM of disarmament and arms control is one that captures the public imagination, especially in an age tortured by the specter of nuclear war...

...The larger the number of nuclear installations, the greater and the more costly the preparations for surprise attack would become...

...Moreover, an American military withdrawal might have tragic psychological consequences for the solidarity of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations...

...MORTON A. KAPLAN, professor of political science at Chicago University, is n Fellow of the Center of International Studies at Princeton...

...Assume, further, that the Soviet Union would not be willing to attack the U.S...

...had 2,000 installations, a Soviet increase from 1,500 to 3,000 installations might not be very dangerous...

...Peace can be maintained best, therefore, by inspection rather than by disarmament or by the removal of American bases from Europe...

...It is important to reach an agreement forbidding the spread of nuclear installations except under international control...

...In the December issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, A. V. Topchiev, General Secretary of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, makes a stirring plea for disarmament...